Ancient crocodiles

Tribune photo by Nancy Stone

Crocodiles may have a nasty, nightmarish reputation among most people, but the leathery, toothy, snappish critters have been around so long that they probably gave most dinosaurs a fright, too. University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno and his colleague at McGill University in Montreal, Hans Larsson, on Thursday unveiled fossils of five ancient crocodile species that lived with and, in some cases, even hunted down and ate up dinosaurs that once roamed what is now Africa's the Sahara Desert region of Africa. This CuckCroc was discovered in Niger.

Crocodiles may have a nasty, nightmarish reputation among most people, but the leathery, toothy, snappish critters have been around so long that they probably gave most dinosaurs a fright, too. University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno and his colleague at McGill University in Montreal, Hans Larsson, on Thursday unveiled fossils of five ancient crocodile species that lived with and, in some cases, even hunted down and ate up dinosaurs that once roamed what is now Africa's the Sahara Desert region of Africa. This CuckCroc was discovered in Niger. (Tribune photo by Nancy Stone)

The nicknames Sereno assigned to each of the five fossil crocodile species pretty much tells the stories of the ecological niches each occupied  BoarCroc, RatCroc, DuckCroc, DogCroc and PancakeCroc. Sereno displays a flesh model, left and a fossil of a BoarCroc which was found in Niger.

The nicknames Sereno assigned to each of the five fossil crocodile species pretty much tells the stories of the ecological niches each occupied  BoarCroc, RatCroc, DuckCroc, DogCroc and PancakeCroc. Sereno displays a flesh model, left and a fossil of a BoarCroc which was found in Niger. (Tribune photo by Nancy Stone)